Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) (51 page)

Kole left Captain Talmir to stew in his thoughts. It suited him.

He made his way down the stairs, body aching like it never had before, and was relieved to see that the commons in the barracks below was not full of the wounded and dying this time. His relief lasted right up until he opened the door to the street outside.

Kole surveyed the grounds adjacent to the courtyard, which had been trampled into mush. To the west, they were still clearing the wreckage that had been the front gate. Beyond it, there was ruin far as the eye could see, the distant trees serving as silent sentinels of a different kind. What judgment they passed, Kole did not want to guess.

Around him, there was not a single soul not in motion. Soldiers still patrolled the battlements, watchful and weary, their armor shining once again under the returned sun. Tradesmen had put their carts to uses far less enterprising than usual, stocking them with debris, and what Kole at first took for a mound of Corrupted resolved itself into the form of a massive bear. The spears had yet to be removed from its flanks and workers and soldiers alike quickened their pace as they passed by it.

A cart laden with a bulging canvas trundled by, and Kole knew that if he had anything in his stomach to give, he’d have given it to the gutter.

What horrors had befallen the people of Hearth while he was away?

A flash of white stole over his vision as something crashed into his chest and laid him low.

“Hi, girl,” Kole said, grabbing the hound by the scruff and rebuffing her kisses. An old woman laughed as she passed by dragging an empty stretcher stained brown with old blood.

Kole managed to gain his footing and cast about. Predictably, he saw the dark-haired boy standing under the eaves across the way. He wondered how many more had been orphaned this year. This week.

“Jakub,” Kole called, waving.

Jakub looked startled that Kole had noticed him, but Kole smiled to put him at ease, scratching Shifa’s flank as she twined around his legs, barking excitedly.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Kole said, affecting a laugh that seemed to draw Jakub out of the shadows even as it filled him with that familiar suspicion. “Care for a walk to the market?”

“No market anymore,” the boy said. “Just a red bowl.”

“That is what it’s called, after all,” Kole said, and the confused look he received in return clued him into the true devastation that had wracked his people.

Shifa did most of the talking on their walk, and for a change, Kole was happy for it. He felt a kinship with Jakub, a similarity of focus.

As Jakub had suggested, the Red Bowl earned its name that day. And if Talmir Caru was to be believed, things had improved substantially in the last few days. The tents still buzzed with activity, and most of the wounded he saw appeared in good spirits. But Kole could tell by the looks turned his way what had been lost.

He happened upon Rain Ku’Ral as she passed beneath an awning. They brushed shoulders before recognizing each other. Her attractive features were lined with the same exhaustion he had seen on the rest, but they drew up in an approximation of her former perkiness as she took him in.

They shared a hug that served as their exchange. There was no fire in it, only a knowing, and then she was off on whatever errand he had interrupted.

Kole thought Jakub had merely happened upon him, but he should have known the boy would not have come if not instructed by Talmir to do so. He tugged at Kole’s britches and guided him toward the outskirts of the Red Bowl to the south, leaving him outside a small tent. Jakub sat down on a crate near the entrance and Shifa moved to join him.

“Guess I’ve got my work cut out for me winning you back, eh girl?”

Shifa merely tilted her head at him, tongue lolling as Jakub stroked her mane absently.

Taei was the first one he saw upon entering, and though he steeled himself for it, the guilt that welled in his gut was difficult to bear. He dreaded to see what lay on the other side of the flap the Ember guarded.

The two men nodded at one another, but the tension was palpable.

Kole made to move past him and Taei snatched his arm, pulling his sleeve roughly. They locked eyes, and, seeing whatever he saw in Kole’s, Taei’s own expression softened.

“She’ll recover,” he said, releasing Kole’s arm and stepping out into the afternoon sun.

Her chin was wrapped in bandages, and for that Kole felt a sting, but most of her face was bare and absent scarring. Her arms were wrapped tightly and bowls of water littered the chamber, many of them soaking fresh wraps. Kole wondered how many times they had already been changed.

He sat by Fihn’s side and took her hand. She winced as he did so, but did not wake.

Kole tried to say he was sorry, but all that emerged was the wracking of silent sobs.

He felt a flood of heat from Fihn’s palm as a bandage came loose from his pressure, and she woke. Kole let her hand fall away with a start, and she looked him in the eyes, steady and alert.

Such a flood of emotions passed over her face, and each of them broke Kole’s heart more than the last. She reached for him, and Kole thought she might strike him had she the strength for it, or else pull him close and whisper words of hatred and regret.

Instead, she unwrapped her hand and touched his own, her eyes hopeful. She tried to speak, but it came out muffled.

Kole felt the heat from her skin wash into him again and realization dawned. An image of the King of Ember came up unbidden, palms glowing molten gold as Kole’s chest froze, heart slowing. He closed his eyes and focused on the heat, calling it to him like a mother cooing to her babe. He heard Fihn sigh and it was like the sweetest music. He made his body a conduit.

Soon Fihn’s hand went limp and Kole released it, placing it back down by her side. Her eyes had closed and her chest rose and fell in a deep sleep, restful and painless.

Kole turned his hand over in the filtered light that spilled in through the canvas, marveling at his newfound abilities and wondering if he had possessed them all along—if all Embers did. His kind had long been able to draw the heat from flame, coal and stone, but from another person? That was something else entire.

He felt movement as the sheet was drawn back in a rush behind him. He turned to see Linn framed against the light of the opening, eyes shining. Taei was at her side, his expression concerned. He looked past Kole to Fihn and rushed to her, touching her bare hand and raising his brows in shock.

“What did you do?” he asked, not taking his eyes from his sister.

“What I could,” Kole said, and Taei favored him with a curt nod that felt like a warm embrace.

Linn did most of the talking as they rode.

There weren’t many horses in the Valley; those there were belonged to Hearth, but the city gladly gave their strongest chargers to the small caravan that was bound for Last Lake. Hearth had been hit hard by the siege, and the burden now fell on the Emberfolk of the Lake to give what they could.

Of course, this caravan’s only cargo was a grievously wounded Ember—Jenk had not so much as twitched in his sleep throughout the afternoon—and a fisherman’s boy that was regaining his former strength and good humor with frightening speed.

Kole supposed they had to stop thinking of Nathen Swell as such after the role he had played in the destruction of the Dark Hearts. And the role he played in the rescue of the woman that rode beside him.

Linn described the state of Hearth when they had arrived before the still-smoking ruins of the front gate. The city had been in chaos. Although the sky had broken and the Corrupted had lost much of their vitality, the care of the wounded was too much for the healers in the Red Bowl to bear.

Luckily, the Faey had emerged from the forests to the east in some number, moving among the husks of the Corrupted like ghosts before lending their substantial gifts to those who needed it most. From the time their Faeykin arrived—more learned in the arts than those of Ember-birth—Hearth did not lose another soul. Kole wished he had the chance to thank them before they withdrew to their own villages, whose devastation was largely guessed at.

When all topics had been exhausted, including Linn’s arduous trek through the Deep Lands and Kole’s own trials, they exchanged feints and dodges, moving around the one subject both were uncertain how best to approach. Things felt strange between them, and Kole did not entirely know why, though he had a few guesses.

The closer they drew to the Lake, the thinner the roots grew, twining their way across the path that was not so far from that which Kole, Shifa and the Kane twins had traversed in a hellish sprint a week before. The longer roots reminded him of Misha Ve’Gah and her fallen spear, another ally he would not have made it far without.

And yet, how far had they made it, truly? They had played no small role in bringing down one tyrant only to learn he was merely the shadow cast by a larger one, one his people had called enemy for centuries. And though he truly felt the Valley was safe for the moment, he could not shake the knowledge that the wider World was suffering under the Sages even as the Emberfolk settled.

“What you did back there,” Linn said, “in the sickbed with Fihn. “How did you do it?”

“For once,” Kole said, “I didn’t command the fire. I offered myself to it and it answered.”

“That’s new,” she said. She meant it to come off light, Kole knew, and yet there was a heaviness as dusk filtered down through the hanging branches.

Kole was glad the Dark Months were far off. He wondered how much less the threat would be now that the Dark Hearts had been purged from their land. No rift had opened in the Valley before. He hoped it remained that way now.

“I’m not the only one with new tricks,” Kole said and Linn looked away. She sighed, opened her mouth to speak and then closed it in a tight, worried line.

“Have you tried again?” Kole asked hesitantly.

“No. But I know I could. I can feel it.”

“Will you?”

She looked at him, and for a moment her eyes flickered from striking to otherworldly.

“You mean to follow them,” she said as much as asked, and Kole nodded slightly.

She sighed.

“Then I suppose I don’t have much of a choice.”

They both looked ahead.

“Is it,” he started. “Is he still—

“No,” she said after a time. Her brow worked, but she took her time choosing the next words.

“There was good in him, Kole,” she said. “I saw it. I felt it. He was not so very different from the Landkist once.”

“Power corrupts,” Kole said softly, only realizing how many ways that went after he had said it.

They rode in silence for a time, and Kole was sorry to know that it was a tense one. Soon enough, familiar trails turned to those inseparable from the memories of the childhood they both shared. The Dark Kind could never take that away. No one could.

The modest timber walls of Last Lake came into view.

“T’Alon Rane believes he’s protecting us all by going after the Sages,” Kole said. “Drawing the Eastern Dark’s need away from us.”

“There is darkness in him,” Linn said. “And much more in those that follow him. Killing even one Sage—the wrong one, at the wrong time—could upset the balance completely.”

“There is no balance in the World,” Kole said.

“How would we know? We’ve never been a part of it.”

Kole was silent.

“We may need them, Kole. If the Eastern Dark plans to open the doors to the World Apart. Who will stop it if not them?”

“He has to die,” Kole said. “At the very least, he has to die.”

“Yes. But we can’t do that on our own. And Rane needs to be stopped. His enemies could be our allies. The other four Sages are no doubt powerful. Powerful enough that the Eastern Dark fears them.”

They reached the front gate and hailed the lads on the sap-slick battlements. Timbers cracked and creaked, and the soft mud moved out of fresh-dug grooves as the doors bowed inward.

“I’m sorry I was late,” Kole said quietly as Nathen yawned and stretched under the flap behind them.

“I’m sorry I left without you,” Linn said. “Left you.”

Kole turned a light smile on her and she returned it.

“I guess we’d better make peace with ourselves and each other,” he said. “Because your sister won’t be having it with either one of us.”